19 March 2016

You'd be most welcome

Katharine Hepburn and Bob Dylan were once neighbours. They both lived in New York in Manhattan's Turtle Bay neighbourhood --Hepburn at 244 East 49th Street and Dylan at 242. Hepburn had lived at the address since 1931 when she rented the townhouse with her husband Ludlow Ogden Smith. Following her divorce from "Luddy", Hepburn bought the four-story house and still owned it when she died in 2003. (She lived there until the 1990s and then retired permanently to her other home in Connecticut.) The rented house which Dylan lived in was once owned by screenwriters Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon. Kanin and Gordon were good friends of Hepburn's, and in 1951 when the house came up for sale, they bought it and were Hepburn's neighbours for some 40 years.

Back to neighbour Dylan. While living next door to Hepburn, at one time he invited her to join the graduation party of his daughter. By way of invitation, Dylan wrote Hepburn a brief note (as seen below) saying she'd be quite welcome to join the party. Apparently, Hepburn never showed [source].

Katharine Hepburn was a beloved resident of the Turtle Bay neighbourhood. She could often be seen cycling through the neighbourhood, shopping in its small stores or shovelling snow from her front entrance. After her death in 2003, the intersection of East 49th Street and 2nd Avenue was renamed "Katharine Hepburn Place".

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